To make it on SuperScholar’s list of influential living atheists, an atheist can’t merely disbelieve in God but also must actively encourage others to disbelieve in God. But even that isn’t enough to make our list. Bill Maher and Penn & Teller, for instance, use their prominence as entertainers to promote atheism. But they do so mainly as popularists, not as scholars attempting to make a considered case against theism and for atheism.

Thus, to make it on our list, an atheist needs not only to be actively promoting atheism but also to do so as scholars in scholarly forums – this is, after all, SuperScholar! All the names below fit that bill. They are notable scholars in their own right and they use their scholarship to promote atheism explicitly or to promote forms of thought that make belief in God untenable.

Personally, I disagree with your list. While these are definitely the most visible to the public eye, I think there are better examples of influential atheists out there like Ayann Hirsi Ali, Annie Laurie Gaylor, PZ Myers, Hemant Mehta, Greta Christina, et al. Again, my list would be just as subjective as we are both individuals, but I feel many on your list DO NOT promote atheism as their primary goal.

on 14 Jan 2011 at 8:01 am 2.john said …

This website is quite the waste of money. Every question can be refuted if you allow yourself to go outside of your own little self motivated world and look at things in the big picture. Christians say God is the creator of the Universe, thus they believe he is slightly “above” the intellect of human beings. Atheists make arguments that make God look like just another human. That is not possible. Where did we come from? Modern theory suggests that we may be a part of some multiverse in which infinite universes are created by intersecting dimensions outside of what we know as space and time.

Now the important part. Atheists see this as proof that God is not needed for our existence. Yet, oh wait, I forgot that the motion of those dimensions that spew out universes like popcorn needed to be started somehow, oh wait, there is an original force, oh who could it possibly be!

on 14 Jan 2011 at 8:57 am 3.Severin said …

2 John
“… oh wait, there is an original force, oh who could it possibly be!”

…oh, wait, there must be, then, an additional “original force” which activated (woke up?) your “original force”.
Then, what activated (woke up?) that “extra original force”, … wait,…it MUST be an additional “original force”, OH, who could it possibly be?
Another, and still another, then another, and another again, “original force”…?
How many of them?

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